“One echo makes another to rejoice!”
His diligence and exemplary devotion to his art, while at Ancona, led also to another prominent occurrence in his career – the appointment, in 1721, to the distinguished place of first violin, and master of the band, to the church of St. Anthony, of Padua. To St. Anthony, as his patron saint, he consecrated himself and his instrument, with a species and a constancy of attachment, that may find not only their excuse, but their credit, in the nature and sentiment of the times he lived in. His extending fame brought him repeated offers from Paris and London, to visit those capitals; but, holding to his conscientious allegiance, he uniformly declined entering into any other service, and was, like St. Anthony himself, a pattern of resistance to temptation.
By the year 1728, he had made many excellent scholars, and established a system of practice, for students on the violin, that was celebrated all over Europe, and increased in reputation to the end of his life. Great numbers of young men resorted to Padua from different countries, in order to receive instruction from him in music, but chiefly in the practice of the violin.
In the early part of his life, he published “Sonate a Violino e Violoncello, o Cembalo, Opera Prima.” This, and his Opera Seconda, of Six Sonatas or Solos for the same instrument, and another work entitled “XVIII Concerti a cinque Stromenti,” were all published by Le Cène, of Amsterdam, and prove him to have been a truly excellent composer. Such, however, was the ascendancy of Corelli’s name, and so ambitious was Tartini of being thought a follower of the precepts and principles of that master, that, during the zenith of his own reputation, he refused to teach any other music to his pupils, till they had studied the Opera Quinta, or Solos, of Corelli; and the excellence of this foundation was made manifest by the result. His favorite pupils were Bini and Nardini. These, as well as others of Tartini’s élèves, formed, in their turn, scholars of great abilities, who contributed to spread his reputation and manner of playing all over Europe.
Tartini’s own first master was an obscure musician, of the name of Giulio di Terni, who afterwards made a fitting change of position, and descended into the pupil of his own scholar – a circumstance related by Tartini himself, who used to say that he had studied very little till after he was thirty years of age26. At the age of fifty-two, Tartini made a marked alteration in his style of playing, from extreme difficulty (or what was then so considered) to grace and expression. His method of executing an adagio has been represented by his contemporaries as inimitable, and was almost, in their idea, supernatural – an impression to which the idea of the patron saint must have not a little conduced.
The particulars that have been preserved respecting his scholar, Pasquale Bini, are not without interest. Recommended to him at the age of fifteen, by Cardinal Olivieri, Tartini found him a youth after his own heart, possessing excellent moral dispositions, as well as musical; and he accordingly cherished a very marked regard for him. This young musician practised with such assiduity, that, in three or four years, he vanquished the most difficult of Tartini’s compositions, and executed them with greater force than the author himself. When he had finished his studies, his patron, Cardinal Olivieri, took him to Rome, where he astonished all the Professors by his performance, – particularly Montagnari, at that time the principal violinist there; and it is generally believed, that Montagnari was so mortified by the superiority, as to have died of grief! When informed that Tartini had changed his style and taste in playing, Bini returned to Padua, and placed himself for another year under that excellent and worthy master; at the end of which period, so intense had been his application, that he played with a degree of certainty and expression truly wonderful.
“Nil actum reputans, si quid superesset agendum,” —
On a certain occasion, in recommending a scholar to him, after his return to Rome, Tartini expressed his sense of Bini’s powers and character, and gave evidence of his own modest and ingenuous disposition, in the following words: – “Io lo mando a un mio scolare chi suona più di me; e me ne glorio, per essere un angelo di costume, e religioso.” – “I recommend him (the applicant) to a scholar of mine, who plays better than myself; and I am proud of it, as he is an angel in religion and morals.” Such praise has its value enhanced by the source whence it proceeds; for it was truly “laudari a laudato viro.”
The death of Tartini occurred at Padua, on the 26th of February, 1770, to the general regret of the people of that city, where he had resided nearly fifty years, and not only was regarded as its most attractive ornament, but, owing to the serious and contemplative turn of his mind, had attained the estimation of being a saint and a philosopher.
Of the general character of Tartini’s compositions, Dr. Burney, who appears to have studied them closely, has given the following judgment: – “Though he made Corelli his model in the purity of his harmony and simplicity of his modulation, he greatly surpassed that composer in the fertility and originality of his invention; not only in the subjects of his melodies, but in the truly cantabile manner of treating them. Many of his adagios want nothing but words, to be excellent pathetic opera-songs. His allegros are sometimes difficult; but the passages fairly belong to the instrument for which they were composed, and were suggested by his consummate knowledge of the finger-board, and the powers of the bow. As a harmonist, he was perhaps more truly scientific than any other composer of his time, in the clearness, character and precision of his bases, which were never casual, or the effect of habit or auricular prejudice and expectation, but learned, judicious and certain. And yet I must, in justice to others, own that, though the adagio and solo playing, in general, of his scholars are exquisitely polished and expressive, yet it seems as if that energy, fire, and freedom of bow, which modern symphonies and orchestra-playing require, were wanting.”
The applicability of the latter remark is, of course, considerably greater in these days than in the Doctor’s time. Another and more recent critical opinion is subjoined: —
“Tartini’s compositions, with all the correctness and polish of Corelli’s, are bolder and more impassioned. His slow movements, in particular, are remarkably vocal and expressive; and his music shows a knowledge of the violin, both in regard to the bow and the finger-board, which Corelli had not been able to attain. His works, therefore, though no longer heard in public, are still prized by the best musicians; a proof of which is, that some of them have been recently reprinted for the use of the Conservatoire of Paris. He has frequently injured their effect, to modern ears, by the introduction of trills and other ornaments, which, like the flounces and furbelows of the female dress of his day, have become old-fashioned; but, at the same time, his compositions are full of beauties, which, belonging to the musical language of nature and feeling, are independent of the influence of time.”
Few of my readers have failed, probably, to hear or read of “The Devil’s Sonata,” that forms so singular a “passage” in the experience of this remarkable man, and is to be met with in Records, Musical, Literary, and Pictorial. Monsieur De Lalande informs us that he had, from Tartini’s own mouth, the following singular anecdote, which conveys an account of it, and shows to what a degree his imagination was inflamed by the genius of composition. “He dreamed, one night, in the year 1713, that he had made a compact with the Devil, who promised to be at his service on all occasions; and, during this vision, every thing succeeded according to his mind; his wishes were anticipated, and his desires always surpassed, by the assistance of his new servant. At length, he imagined that he presented to the Devil his violin, in order to discover what kind of a musician he was; when, to his great astonishment, he heard him play a solo, so singularly beautiful, and executed with such superior taste and precision, that it surpassed all the music he had ever heard or conceived in his life! So great was his surprise, and so exquisite his delight, upon this occasion, as to deprive him